Maleficent is Magnificent

Evil wins out this weekend as Maleficent cast her spell over audiences across North America causing patrons to shell out about 70 Million of their hard earned dollars at our theatres. The other wide release A Million Ways to Die in the West performed under expectations (certainly ours) and opened to a bit over 17 Million.

The mutants of type X tumbled predictably but managed to secure the second spot in the pecking order with a healthy 32.6 Million. Holdovers in general tumbled mightily by some 57% as is usual after Memorial Day Weekend.

The takeaway is that the industry managed to just barely get over the bar from last year and ends up about 1% up for the weekend. Next week, the openings The Fault in Our Stars and Edge of Tomorrow look to be about as potent as The Purge and The Internship which came into the market in 2013. So the revised forecast for the second quarter continues to improve for now with the biggest challenge coming on 6/20 when on 6/21 both Monster’s University and World War Z opened strongly.